The Walkmen just chillin'
‘The Blue Route’ is the first single release to be taken from The Walkmen’s new album ‘You and Me’, which was released earlier this week to high critical praise.
Out on November 10th through Fierce Panda Records, it’s a luscious daydream waltz and proof positive that there’s far more to this band than ‘The Rat’.
Hailing from New York City, the band consists of Hamilton Leithauser (vocals/guitar), Paul Maroon (guitar/piano), Walter Martin (organ/bass), Matt Barrick (drums) and Peter Bauer (bass/organ).
The Walkmen are of course men of stealth and craft, dressed in black and, one wagers, distressed at the lack of loving care and attention applied to modern music. Eight years since the mighty 'We've Been Had' signaled the demise of Jonathan Fire*Eater and heralded the start of something even weirder, 'You & Me' finds the enigmatic quintet in predictably moody form with fourteen tracks of fearsome ingenuity featuring their trademark clanging guitar, their spooked keyboards making like a gothic ice cream van on Mars, their drums rolling like a schooner in a force ten gale.
Lead-off UK single 'The Blue Route' sets the unsettled mood perfectly with the bruised, mournful voice of Hamilton Leithauser howling "What happened to you? What happened to you?" as the song craftily builds to a lush climax. Regrets? They've had a few. But then again, not too few to mention on this record.
Alternative wild cards The Walkmen may be but you can't fault their consistency: 2002 saw the release of 'Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone', 2004 was the year of 'The Rat' and its parent album 'Bows & Arrows', 2006 witnessed 'A Hundred Miles Off' and precisely two more years later comes 'You & Me'.
So underestimate The Walkmen at your peril. Likewise, if the music has a chaotic, drunken ebb and flow which hints at some spontaneous outpouring of musical grief then the reality is anything but, as 'You & Me' was painstakingly pieced together over two years in two cites - NYC and Philadelphia - and part of that meticulous construction was to make the album sound like a rock'n'roll record with depth and warmth and - uniquely for this notoriously challenging outfit - an uplifting mood to accompany the downtrodden chords.
Not for nothing does 'You & Me' clock in at nearly an hour long; and not for nothing does the track 'Red Moon' sound like a Christmas number one on any planet which has any soul whatsoever. This is a bit complicated. This is profoundly complex. This then is a pukka grown-up album by a proper band's band.